Special Service and Features
Indian Oil organizes Webinar Conclave to develop entrepreneurship in CBG Sector
IndianOil organized a one-day Webinar Conclave on Compressed Bio Gas  reaching out to prospective entrepreneurs, investors and other stake holders to familiarize them in developing CBG production and marketing infrastructure.
The first CBG production plant setup by IOTL limited, a JV of IndianOil and Oil Tanking GmBH, a German company was inaugurated recently at Namakkal by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and Hon’ble Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel.
While this plant is already feeding CBG as automotive fuel to a network of IndianOil Retail Outlets in Salem & Namakkal Districts, the fuel is also supplied to the nearby industries. The plant also has a bio-manure s a by-product, which is marketed separately. CBG is bound to emerge as a key renewable automotive fuel with amazing fuel savings and the energy / calorific values similar to commercially available natural gas, a simple kit for fuel convertibility and compatibility to CNG driven cars.
SATAT scheme of Ministry of Petroleum envisages setting up of 5000 such plants across the nation by the year 2023. Biogas besides being an ecofriendly and renewable fuel also facilitates Responsible waste management since it uses biomass including agricultural residue, municipal solid waste, Cattle dung & poultry litter as feed stock for production.
This CBG expansion under SATAT is bound to boost entrepreneurship and rural economy & employment, since all the plants are required to be set up by private, independent entrepreneurs. The conclave intends to familiarized the prospective investors and entrepreneurs with major components of setting up the CBG infrastructure including raw material sourcing, technology adoption and institutional finance.
Mr. G K Satish, Director , IndianOil inaugurated the CBG Conclave through Webinar Mode from New Delhi in presence of Mr. Gurmeet Singh, Director , IndianOil, Mr P Jayadevan, Executive Director & State Head for IndianOil in Tamil Nadu & Puducherry.
In his inaugural address Mr. G K Satish said, “The CBG sector is new, and is very much still in the developing stage. Though we have now gained reasonable experience in this emerging sector, there is still the potential to improve on existing Supply chains for CBG, requiring deeper study, for bringing it at par with the matured networks of fossil fuels.”
While addressing the participants, Mr. Gurmeet Singh said, “The potential for production of CBG from various sources in the country is estimated to be around 62 million tons per annum. SATAT targets around 5000 plants in the country by the year 2023. These plants are expected to produce 15 million tons of CBG per annum, which is about 40% of current CNG consumption of 44 million tons per annum in the country”.
Mr. P. Jayadevan, ED & State Head, TNSO setting the context for the Conclave said, “While SATAT, the initiative rolled out by Govt. of India, is giving assurances to the producers in terms of viable pricing. This is a win-win situation for producers and the consumers as the product is clean green and made from waste.
Over 600 participants from across the country attended the Conclave to listen to the speakers from Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Industry experts, Research Institutions, officials from State Government Departments and Financial & Banking institutions.
(